She said she was quite
calm and happy, relied upon the mediation of Christ, and had no terror
at all. She had worked very hard, even when ill; but believed that was
in her nature, and neither regretted nor complained of it. Burnett had
been always very good to her; they had never quarrelled; she was sorry
to think of his going back to such a lonely home; and was distressed
about her children, but not painfully so. She showed me how thin and
worn she was; spoke about an invention she had heard of that she would
like to have tried, for the deformed child's back; called to my
remembrance all our sister Letitia's patience and steadiness; and,
though she shed tears sometimes, clearly impressed upon me that her mind
was made up, and at rest. I asked her very often, if she could ever
recall anything that she could leave to my doing, to put it down, or
mention it to somebody if I was not there; and she said she would, but
she firmly believed that there was nothing--nothing. Her husband being
young, she said, and her children infants, she could not help thinking
sometimes, that it would be very long in the course of nature before
they were reunited; but she knew that was a mere human fancy, and could
have no reality after she was dead. Such an affecting exhibition of
strength and tenderness, in all that early decay, is quite
indescribable. I need not tell you how it moved me. I cannot look round
upon the dear children here, without some misgiving that this sad
disease will not perish out of our blood with her; but I am sure I have
no selfishness in the thought, and God knows how small the world looks
to one who comes out of such a sick-room on a bright summer day. I don't
know why I write this before going to bed. I only know that in the very
pity and grief of my heart, I feel as if it were doing something." After
not many weeks she died, and the little child who was her last anxiety
did not long survive her.

In all the latter part of the year Dickens's thoughts were turning much
to the form his next book should assume. A suggestion that he should
write it in the first person, by way of change, had been thrown out by
me, which he took at once very gravely; and this, with other things,
though as yet not dreaming of any public use of his own personal and
private recollections, conspired to bring about that resolve. The
determination once taken, with what a singular truthfulness he contrived
to blend the fact with the fiction may